WTF would ANYONE buy a WIn 7 PC?

Hi Joseph,

I use Vutrax for PCB design (a commercial program dating back to DOS days but still updated for Windows and Linux). gerbv for gerber viewing.

emacs for text editing, could look at Eclipse if you want that type of environment.

Various gcc toolchains for embedded/microcontroller programming (mainly ARM7 and cortex-m3 code now, but also AVR and C167 in the past). I also use it to cross-compile some simple windows utilities, mainly firmware updaters so my customers can update products.

openocd for JTAG flashing/debug, and the gdb/insight graphical debugger.

git for revision control (all types of file, not just programming).

Inkscape for vector graphic editing ("graphic design"). Like front panel overlays and illustrations for manuals. Also great for extracting graphics from existing PDFs.

The gimp for the bitmapped formats, photo editing, screenshots.

Firefox browser, thunderbird for mail.

emacs again for usenet.

LTSpice under wine (works well, need the xchm help viewer to read the help file).

Python and "Linux GPIB" drivers for writing instrument control programs.

Openoffice for word processing, spreadsheets etc. Will switch to the LibreOffice fork if reinstalling. Also TeX (actually the Context variant/macrolanguage).

VirtualBox and dosbox for virtualization as mentioned. I would look (again) at kvm/qemu if starting anew, now VirtualBox is controlled by Oracle. But VirtualBox is still very good at present.

There are dozens of others, xpdf, ImageMagick, vnc, f-spot, gtkam, all the KDE stuff, ssh, the various servers.

They all update themselves automatically (except the toolchains I compiled myself). A single update tool handles everything in a unified way, even running software can be updated without reboots etc.

Regarding the distribution, it has been debian since 2001 (just checked!), The same original install keeping itself up to date for the last 11 years, migrating from machine to machine as I upgrade hardware. Current version is debian "squeeze". I would consider the debian-derived Kubuntu for a new install, using it on a laptop and looks good.

--

John Devereux

amount of risk,

draft

dunnit

credit

card

pay

help the

while

Very

Occasionally they

Then I

knows,

stuff.

money in a

too.

right

if

my

locations,

not

Of the world? Not sure, but very likely more than half need them for something.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I find dosemu/freedos runs DOS applications better than MSDOS ever did.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

amount of risk,

card draft

who dunnit

credit

card

pay

help the

while

Very

Occasionally they

Then I

knows,

stuff.

money in a

too.

right

if

my

locations,

not

Want to move the goal posts further?

amount of risk,

card draft

who dunnit

and credit

card

to pay

help the

while

Very

Occasionally they

Then I

never knows,

detectors.

stuff.

put money in a

too.

right

is if

of my

locations,

not

I didn't move any goal posts. AFAIK over 12% of US persons (meaning born here or legally here) are foreign born. That is not at all an insignificnt percentage.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

amount of risk,

card draft

who dunnit

and credit

credit card

to pay

help the

while

Very

Occasionally they

them. Then I

never knows,

detectors.

stuff.

put money in a

have, too.

right

is if

of my

locations,

It's not

You moved the goal posts (all the way to Siberia) when you "generalized" the group who needed to protect their birth certificate because it may be difficult to replace to every individual on the planet.

amount of risk,

card draft

who dunnit

and credit

credit card

to pay

help the

phone while

Very

Occasionally they

them. Then I

never knows,

detectors.

stuff.

not

put money in a

have, too.

right

is if

of my

locations,

no

It's not

The scope of participants in this group is ... worldwide :-)

Where did I ever indicate goal posts restricted to within the US?

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I run a lot of my old DOS stuff under DOS Box. With a DPMI client running, even my old DOS protected mode schematic and pcb program runs perfectly fine in 1024 X 768.

amount of risk,

card draft

entity who dunnit

and credit

credit card

have to pay

to help the

phone while

help. Very

Occasionally they

them. Then I

never knows,

detectors.

stuff.

not

put money in a

have, too.

is right

it is if

birth

copy of my

several locations,

no

It's not

No one ever said it was. However, not every person on the planet needs a safe deposit box to protect their birth certificate, as you seem to think. ;-)

stunning amount of risk,

credit card draft

entity who dunnit

:)

banks and credit

credit card

have to pay

to help the

phone while

help. Very

Occasionally they

them. Then I

never knows,

detectors.

watching stuff.

not

would put money in a

have, too.

is right

it is if

birth

copy of my

several locations,

hospital no

It's not

Sure, you can also put it in the box under the old couch in uncle Leroy's barn :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

stunning amount of risk,

credit card draft

entity who dunnit

:)

banks and credit

credit card

have to pay

to help the

phone while

help. Very

Occasionally they

them. Then I

never knows,

detectors.

indeed

watching stuff.

safe, not

would put money in a

have, too.

is right

it is if

birth

copy of my

several locations,

hospital no

It's not

population

I don't think so, Tim. Ol' Leroy's barn has a higher probability of burning than my house. ;-)

te:

rote:

ote:

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d credit card draft

he entity who dunnit

urse. =A0:)

er banks and credit

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illing to help the

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. Occasionally they

dd to them. Then I

ut one never knows,

.

al detectors.

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s safe, not

=A0Who would put money in a

ngs CUs have, too.

x safe is right

ow fae it is if

like birth

ve a copy of my

oss several locations,

born? =A0;-)

sed the

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him.

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ample

ment. =A0It's not

pulation

or

born

ed" the

ds a safe

=A0;-)

Or put it in a Ziplok freezer bag, place that in a Tupperware, and bury it in the backyard along with all those sterling silver coins for when the US dollar collapses =3D)

Michael

You're nuts--dosemu is as brittle as can be. The best DOS is still IBM PCDOS 7.1, which knows about FAT32 file systems and has the Y2K fixes. You can get ~600kB low memory free, and it doesn't crash. I'm actually looking for a full copy that I can install under KVM/QEMU.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

I actually bought this at one time, and likely still have it, shrink wrap and all. I do have Win 3.11 and an old MS-DOS in those conditions. Likely, the day after I die, they will become valuable collectors items. Right now, my Tandon 10MB original XT drive is worth $10.

Doesn't the newer DR-DOS also have FAT32 R/W ability?

Aside from that, the reason the emulators *would* be a more viable solution would be the file system contentions the old legacy stuff has.

Still, you may have to find it already installed, or install it yourself on an old legacy machine, and then copy that installed image into your KVM system.

I have an original copy of IBM's DOS-2000! I think that was the last one.

XP runs an OK dos, but doesn't allow port i/o. DOSBOX is supposed to do that, but I haven't tried it.

TOTALIO also opens up direct port access under Windows.

John

There was a DOS 7.1, after PCDOS-2000 (2003), also. It included the FAT32 stuff.

I've found it to be rock-solid (dosemu 1.2.0 compiled from source on this machine).

I have actually run IBM PCDOS 5 under dosemu. That was good, but I prefer freedos for its UNIX-like extensions. I don't have to remember to type "dir" instead of "ls", and I still have cp, mv, cat, grep, cmp and rm.

I don't have any fat32 filesystems.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
                                       (Richard Feynman)

The main problem with DOSEMU is when you have a program that uses lots and lots of PF keys and so forth, or that does BIOS video tricks. Freelance and WordPerfect 5.1 both crater it regularly. Dosbox is more stable, but slow as molasses even on a fast machine.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

Nearly ALL flash memory 'sticks' are formatted as such. Walking around with an EXT formatted one is pretty useless.